


Imbolc

by athousandvictories



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, First Kiss, M/M, Merlin is So Done (Merlin), Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), Pagan Festivals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 10:07:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21336487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandvictories/pseuds/athousandvictories
Summary: He looks as rotten as he feels, or he still smells of spiced mead, because Arthur snickers."I've rarely known the feast of Saint Brigid to take such a toll."Merlin rolls his eyes hard enough to amplify the pounding in his head. Banning magic and renaming half of the feast days doesn't stop anyone from celebrating the Old traditions, and Arthur knows it as well as anyone.Merlin celebrates a pagan holiday, gets hungover, and is just over it. Everything comes to a head.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 653





	Imbolc

* * *

"Precious Blood of Christ, Merlin", Arthur says, when Merlin throws his breakfast down with a violent clatter.

"Apologies, my Lord." Merlin sounds unrepentant because he is. He's only had a few hours of sleep, and the world can only expect so much from him, really.

This morning he felt like _utter shite_, enough to pretend he hadn't seen the pale light of early dawn in his window and wrap a blanket around his head to prevent accidentally observing the sunrise. Ignorance really had been bliss, until Gaius came in to shout him awake. That was embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as stepping on some kitchen girl's dress coming up the stairs or immediately dropping one of Arthur's breakfast loaves on the floor. The cook had seen him brush it off and put it back on the tray but he couldn't bring himself to care. Directly after that, he'd nearly flattened Gwen's face with the door on the way out of the kitchen - she just smirked at him, dark circles under her eyes the only evidence she'd been up as late as he had.

If he's honest with himself, he might have done half those things on a regular day. Reaching out for magic is instinctual, and suppressing that gut reaction all the time makes him feel like a young boy again, stumbling around with limbs growing too fast for the rest of him to keep up.

The difference was that back then when he'd broken a lot of clay dishes and exasperated his mother, she hadn't called him names. Arthur teases him constantly for his gracelessness, which is hardly fair when it's Arthur's own fault. Merlin leans away from that feeling usually, tries to be forgiving, but right now his head hurts and he's not feeling a single shred of benevolence.

He looks as rotten as he feels, or he still smells of spiced mead, because Arthur snickers.

"I've rarely known the feast of Saint Brigid to take such a toll."

Merlin rolls his eyes hard enough to amplify the pounding in his head. Banning magic and renaming half of the feast days doesn't stop anyone from celebrating the Old traditions, and Arthur knows it as well as anyone. The court still celebrates Beltane and Samhain - Uther would probably prefer otherwise, but there are no New feasts on those days yet and no one wants to miss a chance for drinking and dancing (especially with no Mass to attend beforehand).

Luckily for Merlin, Saint Brigid had entered the picture and effectively replaced Imbolc. For once, the nobility were the ones missing out, already abed instead of having their wine poured and messes cleaned late into the night. Commoners got the thrill of running off into the dusk to celebrate a feast that was theirs alone.

Merlin had gone out to a little spring with Gwen, a young seamstress named Winifred, and Cuthbert and Alf, the friendliest of the stable hands.

"It's one of the sacred ones" Winifred had said, pouring an offering of thin soup into the stream. She was right, Merlin found, when he relaxed and let himself feel with his magical senses as well as physical. It felt profoundly good to use them, like cracking his spine after sitting for too long. There was a soft hum in the place, the frosted banks a little softer under their feet, the brook a little more silvery sounding. The boys had gone off to gather wood, and they had made a rather impressive bonfire. More impressive was the amount of mead they downed in front of it (blessed in the stream by Gwen of course).

Merlin also had foggy memories of a few soft kisses exchanged with either Winifred or Cuthbert(in his defense, they are both dark and slender), before the coldest part of the night had driven them back to their respective quarters.

"What, daydreaming about your heathen practices?" Arthur asks, smiling crookedly into a bite of his bread and cheese. Merlin realizes he's been across the table from Arthur this whole time, just... standing there.

"At least I've not yet profaned Christ this morning, Sire," Merlin mumbles, rounding the table to start finding Arthur's clothes.

"Blasphemer or not, I need to attend Candlemas looking like Uther's worthy heir, so I hope my white surcoat's been laundered."

Merlin doesn't dignify that with a resonse, but he has the ensemble ready as Arthur pushes away from the table, and he drapes it over the Royal Head with sullen ease. What he is feeling, he decides, as he moves close to fasten Arthur's ornate feast-days belt, is righteous exasperation. Exasperation that the inlaid gems are reflecting sunlight into his very sensitive eyes, exasperation that the buckle is elaborate and being difficult, exasperation that he can feel his heart start to pound in his ears as his hands repeatedly brush Arthur's body. He steps back from Arthur to see that he's frowning.

"You smell", like mead, Merlin thinks he will say (and no surprise). "Like girls perfume."

_Oh._

He'd kissed Winifred then. That's brilliant actually, he sees her much less than he sees the others and they won't have a chance to be awkward about it anytime soon.

"Merlin," Arthur's voice is dangerously calm, and Arthur's taken a step toward him, invading his space enough that Merlin moves back instinctively, pressing into the edge of the table. "I didn't know your pagan cavorting extended into licentiousness."

"It's the feast of the fertility goddess after all, I can't be expected not to _participate,_" Merlin says, knowing that will get Arthur worked up. Arthur takes another step closer, and Merlin has nowhere to go. There are only inches between them, even when he bends back over the table. He can feel Arthur's exhale on his mouth and works to keep his own breathing steady.

"You know how my father feels about the Old Religion," Arthur says**. **Merlin notices that he does not say "how I feel". Normally he might be grateful for that, but today it's not enough to make him feel anything.**  
**

"A pity," Merlin says, making the easy decision to continue provoking Arthur, "Imbolc is such a harmless way to welcome a _fertile_ spring." The tiny, responsible bit of his mind wonders what kind of self-destructive idiot would stoke Arthur's obvious jealousy. The rest of him is wondering how far he'll need to go to get him to come closer. "You ought to celebrate my Lord, it's rather an enjoyable observance as feasts go."

"Is it?" Arthur _hates_ having his rhetorical questions answered and this is too lovely an opportunity to pass up. 

"Oh, yes." His is headache is clearly here to stay, so he might as well take Arthur down with him.

"How exactly", Arthur's eyes narrow "did you celebrate this illegal feast?"

"Very innocently", Merlin says, innocently. If he's giving Arthur his widest doe eyes, it's not calculated. Not very calculated, anyway. If Arthur's irritated by guilelessness it's his own problem. "A fire and some cheap mead. And it's not illegal, it's only, erm... un-endorsed?"

"And is that all?" Arthur tilts his head. He's looking pointedly at Merlin's mouth.

They've had these moments before, Arthur getting too close for it not to be on purpose and giving him _looks_. Merlin wouldn't say the looks are seductive, necessarily, but they are decidedly not fraternal. Usually, they are followed by a verbal jab, which clears the air nicely. Sometimes they aren't, and he gazes back, but he never gives ground. The tension between them is not something it would be wise to explore. Commoners may be unfazed if the prince takes a male consort, but Uther, champion of the New Religion, is unlikely to be thrilled.

Today, Merlin can't bring himself to give a fig about anything, really, and Uther's opinion is included. He tilts his head the opposite direction to Arthur's, closing half the distance between their faces.

"Sire," he says, "I wouldn't want to make you jealous".

Then Arthur's mouth is on his. Winifred's soft kisses can't compare to the blinding brilliance of _Arthur Pendragon_ biting down on his lip. Merlin, rather an expert at egging Arthur on, allows himself a groan, and Arthur presses his tongue into his mouth in response. Merlin can taste the bread and cheese, the watered-down ale, the bitterness of sleep in Arthur's mouth. It's real, and it's still everything he imagined it might be.

Merlin was never one to let his station hold him back, so he slips his fingers under Arthur's stupid belt, pulling his hips forward into his own, canted to meet them. Arthur groans now, and Merlin uses the belt, steers him so that he's the one pressed into the table. Arthur, ever the _sovereign_, will have none of it and charges forward at him. They stumble a few steps back and Merlin feels his skull collide with the bedpost. His already pounding head feels awful, but the pain is still nothing like enough to clear his head.

"Prat," he hisses, in between kisses. Arthur, impatient sod that he is, already has a hand wrenching at the laces of Merlin's pants with not remotely the dexterity needed to untie them. It's still a gratifying experience and Merlin forgives him the clumsiness. His body is aching for this, kisses with pretty pagans aside, he's led a repressed life in more ways than one.

Arthur pulls away from his mouth, apparently in order to bite down on his neck. Merlin clutches at the bedpost behind him, grips it until his fingers bite into the wood. He can hear obscene sounds from where Arthur's mouth meets his collarbone.

"Gods, Arthur."

Arthur responds that he swears like _such_ a bloody pagan, but his voice sounds far away, and Merlin wonders if he's still a little drunk. He can feel blood pulsing hard in his cheekbones(other places too), and knows he must be flushed, blotchy, down half his torso. This realization inspires him to ruck up the Arthur's tunic, splaying hands across his rib cage. Merlin is satisfied to find Arthur's skin hot under his palms, and the prince presses into the touch, tilts his mouth up to nip at Merlin's jawline as his fumbling hands finally win out against Merlin's laces.

It's too almost too much to handle, Arthur's hands, and something Merlin's been keeping tamped down leaps out of him. He can suddenly feel Arthur's presence, hot and radiating out from him like he's the sun. The world is bright and sharp and_ perfect, _and when Arthur raises his head, probably to kiss him on the mouth again, Merlin can only stare at him, panting and awestruck. Arthur stares back, but something changes in his expression. His hands go still, and then he pulls away, brows knit, eyes searching Merlin's face.

Merlin realizes that his irises must be gold.

Arthur takes another step back, into what Merlin recognizes as a warrior's stance.

"You're - you filthy traitor!"

Merlin is somehow on the cusp of both tears and laughter. Heightened emotions are prone to morph into panic, Gaius would say. He's imagined this moment just about every night, fantasized about how he'll be forced to save Arthur's life in front of him, heroically, and Arthur will look solemn at first, but then he will persist with daily offers of knighthood, so doggedly that Merlin is forced to accept.

This particular circumstance did not make it into those daydreams. He imagines running to Kilgharrah with_ this_ one.

_Have you ever tried to bed The Once and Future King, Your Destiny, Your Mystical Other Half? It's a very magical experience! _  
  
He tries to find words, something he can say to deescalate this, but all the fantasies have obviously been for naught, because he's got nothing.

_I've never hurt anyone? I only use it to serve you?_

Both false.  
  
While he's been standing here with his pants undone, Arthur's gone over to the chair where his sword is hanging in its belt. Sunlight flashes off the blade as he unsheathes it. Merlin had done a bloody fantastic job polishing it, only to be threatened with it - just great. He pinches the bridge of his nose.  
  
"Kneel on the floor," Arthur says, voice low and calm. He's shaking, Merlin manages to notice. Merlin's shaking too, from fear and lingering arousal. Not enough of either to drown out his headache.

"That benefits nobody", Merlin argues and Arthur rests the sword at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. On Arthur's face are betrayal, grief, despair, everything Merlin is always trying to shield him from. The irony in that makes his mouth twist a little.

"How many times have you lied to me?"

"Barely more than I've saved your arse!" Merlin says, louder than he'd planned to. He's more upset than he thought.

_Tired men do not react with the wisdom of their better selves, _says Gaius, in his mind.

Either way, this is not going how it was supposed to go. His very darkest fantasy had Arthur beheading him on the spot while he knelt honorably for the sword (Arthur would weep miserably over his unmarked grave for the rest of his life, of course). And now, thanks to a bloody hangover, even that one had to be thrown out.

"Lying, sorcerer scum," Arthur says, and the edge of the sword presses harder into Merlin's neck. It's been sharpened recently, by him, and he did too good a job, because it breaks the skin easily. Blood runs warm over his neck, but there's no pain. He's had too much in adrenaline in the last five minutes for that. And while his major arteries are still intact, his shirt certainly isn't - he can see a patch on the front dark enough that no amount of cold spring water will take it out. He opens his hands at Arthur.

"Now you're making a mess."

Arthur barks out a laugh. He sounds hysterical, but Merlin doesn't say that, because while Arthur may be free with calling people girls, he's not got thick enough skin to be called one himself. He doesn't move the sword, so Merlin does it for him, magically wrestling it out of his grip without lifting a finger. It lands on the floor with a clang.

Merlin takes the opportunity to retie his pants. Arthur, like an idiot, goes over to get the sword.

"Would you just - stop tying to kill me for half a second?" Merlin takes a shot at the binding spell he's practiced on his horse (a lovely creature, but prone to breaking her hobbles and wandering off to find clover). He succeeds in tying Arthur's hands behind his back with a ribbon of golden light. A little self-indulgent, maybe, but also practical.

Arthur's expression is almost comically outraged. Merlin actually manages to get angry at that, because Arthur's not the one with a magic-repressing backache, a hangover and - and a history of being tremendously underestimated. Also, Arthur's- the _rest of Arthur_ seems to disagree with him whether he's outraged or something else, so at least part of his indignation is obviously a farce.

"Listen, I never asked for this. I tried not to do magic but it turns out - there's a lot of vicious magical creatures and jilted sorcerers running around! Not to mention a dragon told me it was my destiny to stop you from dying, which you insist on making a matter of constant vigilance."

There's a long pause, with a lot of heavy breathing.

Merlin's not sure if it would be more gratifying for Arthur to be reconsidering all his miraculous recoveries and convenient victories and narrow escapes, or to be reconsidering just getting on with the kissing.

"You're going to get blood on my surcoat, you idiot." Arthur says, finally, which is such an irrelevant and prattish thing to say. Merlin wants to make fun of him, but there is actually a lot of blood when he glances down at himself, and he has to release Arthur's bonds so he can focus on not throwing up.

When he looks back up, Arthur hasn't gone for the sword. He's chosen to stand there looking unimpressed.

"I can't believe that you were apprentice to the court physician."

"Listen, _Sire,_ if I wanted you dead I would've just let the chandelier fall on you and spared us all from your constant - this." Merlin gestures at Arthur's idiot mouth.

"Christ's hands, you've been doing it from the first day you got here? Are you some kind of halfwit?"

"Spoken as if you have a healthy fear of death!" Merlin retorts.

"You need to_ take care_ with your words and with - that." Merlin glances down, briefly, and then back up at Arthur, who is gratifyingly mortified. "Not _that_ \- the other, the sorcery."

"So you won't tell anyone?"

Arthur only heaves a theatrical sigh. Merlin knows that means _yes_, and starts to feel a little lightheaded at the enormity of everything that's just happened, at the chain of events he set off this morning.

_Thanks, Saint Brigid?_

Arthur's voice breaks the silence.

"I can't believe that - that _sodomizing_ my manservant isn't the most foolish decision I've made today." He sounds strained. 

"Now, now," Merlin says, "it had hardly come to sodomizing, and anyway, who's to say you'd be the one doing it."

"You're a pagan."

"And you're a prat."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, dear friend, for reading my first foray back into fic since finishing my degree. Did you find a passage particularly nice (or particularly clunky)? Leave a comment and let me know!


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